Part 23

“You will see Christina Alberta? When I saw you first I thought you had things to tell me--important things. One lives on such hopes here. Here--when there are no visitors--nothing happens, nothing pleasant. And one is distressed....

“I am interested to hear of those cities in Central Asia of course, but it is a little puzzling. Did you come specially about them? Or just to see me?

“You will come again. Even to come down here to this sitting-room is an event....”

Then in a swift whisper. “The food is frightful. So badly cooked. It disagrees with me....”

“That woman,” said Bobby as he went, “She has spoilt everything. I can’t stand her.”

“That woman?” said Sargon, and followed the direction of Bobby’s eyes. “Poor soul,” he said. “She’s a deaf mute. She comes to see her brother. The whole family is defective or insane.”

A maddened Bobby returned towards his little inn. Should he chuck the whole thing? Intolerable thought! He must make fresh plans--fresh plans altogether. He must begin all over again. The little man was evidently wretched. But it was going to be harder to get hold of him than Bobby had thought.

Bobby had no sleep that night.

§ 4

In the night just before daybreak suddenly Sargon woke up and understood. He understood quite clearly what the young man had been saying to him. He had said “Rescue!” Of course he had meant to say “Escape”! That city in Central Asia was only a parable; he had said as much. He had been describing a corner of the asylum grounds, that corner where the stream ran out beyond the work-fields and the shrubbery where the patients were supposed not to go. He had been telling of friends who would wait outside. He had been trying to arrange an hour when these friends would come there. And Sargon had failed to understand. He sat up in bed very still.

It was perfectly clear, but through a sort of dulness that came upon him at times he had not grasped the drift of it at the time. The young man had shown irritation, naturally enough. What would he do now? Would he try again? Were the friends still waiting?

Who was this young man? His name was unknown or forgotten. But he believed. He had said, “I call you by no other name.” Sargon! And there were these friends he spoke of, who waited outside for the king. They must know. How could they know, if there was nothing to be known? After all, perhaps it was no dream. Perhaps the world was awakening.... But he had failed them. He had not understood.... They waited without....

How still everything was! A strange unusual stillness. It was rare for this place to be so bereft of noise. It was dark and yet not altogether dark. The ward was dimly lit by a blue-shaded light. The three nearer beds were unoccupied, and beyond the man who tossed and muttered almost incessantly lay for a little while at peace. The man who raved had died three days ago; the man who gave sudden loud shouts had been taken away to another ward. Through the open door one could see across the landing into the little yellow-lit room, where Brand the ward attendant sat with his arms crossed and chin on his chest and slept, his patience cards spread out before him. He seemed to be alone and yet he could sleep like that! Where could the other man be--the new attendant whose name Sargon did not know? And yet he felt--some one had just gone out!

The uncurtained windows showed the night outside, a darkness that became translucent, a streak of very black cloud and five pale stars. Across the lower edge of that oblong picture one could see indistinctly a tracery of tree branches and the lumpish head of a young oak still bearing its leaves, the trees along the first hedge. These outlines grew distincter as he watched. It was like the slow development of a photographic plate in the dark-room. The stars dissolved. Had there been five? There were three; the other two had dissolved into the pale invading light.

Dared one venture on to the landing? If Brand awoke he could make some natural excuse. He stood well with Brand. But the other fellow----?

There was not a trace of him. Where had he gone?...

_Do it now!_--wisest of maxims.

Very swiftly Sargon slipped out of bed and put on his dressing-gown and slippers. Hush! _What was that?_... Only some one snoring. Nothing more. He went out and stood on the landing. Brand slept on like a log.

The stone staircase was lit and empty and from the open door to the left downstairs came the harsh breathing of a sleeper. All the world seemed asleep for once, except Sargon and those friendly watchers outside the walls. Far away there were sounds of bawling and raving, but these were stifled by distance and an intervening door. They merely made the nearer silence more perceptible.

Something stirred, a little clicking sound that sent Sargon’s heart racing. Then a resonant blow. A second blow. It was nothing; it was the clock downstairs striking six.

Very quietly but very resolutely he walked downstairs. An intuition, an instinct impelled him. He felt and peered at the door and behold! it was ajar! Unbolted! Unlocked! Brand’s colleague was abroad upon some errand of his own. The cold air of freedom blew upon Sargon’s face.

The door opened and closed softly and Sargon stood upon the doorstep of the left wing of the asylum, facing the dim world of a November dawn.

It was dark but it was clear, a world of ebony outlines and colourless forms. Everything looked as if it had just been wiped over with a wet rag. It was cold, but it was cold without any of the hate and bitterness of wind.

He crossed the gravel drive and came to a stop and stood looking about him. The heavy building of the left wing rose above him, a vast bulk that went up into the paler darkness of the sky. It receded in perspective and the central block beyond looked like the ghost of a house. Here and there were orange-lit windows and others fainter lit by some remote reflected light. In the lodge to the left of the gates there was also a light. For where there is madness there is never perfect sleep.

But the asylum was as near complete silence that morning as an asylum can ever be.

He looked and listened. Not a footfall. It would not do to be found here by that other attendant....

But the man was snugly away somewhere. No one would loiter here in this chill air.

What was it Sargon had to remember?

The friends and believers were waiting for him. They were waiting now. Where the river ran out of the city wall; that was to say where the little streamlet ran out of the grounds. That would be this way--to the left, where the fields dropped down-hill. He stepped on to the grass, for his feet made loud sounds on the gravel. The grass hissed crisply. It was heavy with white frost and his footmarks made black blots in the wet silvery grey.

He walked past and away from the ponderous dark mass of the asylum into the open, colder air of freedom. He unlatched and went through the small iron gate in the iron fencing that separated the trim grass plots of the front from the cabbage field. It complained a little on its hinge and he opened and closed it very carefully. He struck across the field. The path ran before him into a mist. It came out of the mist to his feet and vanished behind him. It was as if it went past him while he marked time. He could not remember whither the path ran, nor how it lay with regard to the corner he sought. But every moment things grew clearer.

Every moment things grew clearer. There had been something dark and brooding in the sky that hung over him and seemed to watch him. He had done his best to ignore the vague presence, because he was afraid of his own imagination. But suddenly he saw plainly that it was just the tops of trees showing above the mist. That must be the line of trees along the hedge parallel to the asylum front. He must go through these if he wanted to go down-hill. He left the path and made his way slowly along a frozen ridge of dug earth. He skirted long rows of stalky cabbages, black and shrivelled and unkempt they looked like Cossack sentinels afoot. They all leant towards him as though they listened to the sound of him.

As he drew near the hedge and the trees he heard a sound like the feet of an army of midgets. It was the drip, drip of moisture from the trees.

Far away behind him and quite invisible to him a motor car scurried along the high-road.

He had some difficulty in finding a way through the hedge and a bramble scratched his ankle. He told himself there was no hurry; the friends waited. Beyond the hedge the ground went down-hill and the mist grew whiter and thicker. The daylight was strong enough now to show the mist dead-white. It veiled the stream altogether.

He walked slowly. He had no sense of being pursued. Brand would not go into the ward for an hour yet; he might not miss him for a long time....

What a wonderful thing, thought Sargon, is daybreak, and how little one sees of it! Every day begins with this miraculous drama and we sleep through it as though it did not concern us and rouse ourselves only for the trite day. A little while ago the world had been an inky monochrome and now it was touched with colour. The sky was blue. All the stars had gone--but no! not all. One still shone, a large pale star, the star of Sargon. And the sky about it was flushed with a faint increasing pinkiness. That must be the east and that star must be the morning star, hanging above the outhouse chimneys. Those chimneys were very distinct. The butt end of the asylum which had been a black and shapeless monster a little while ago, had now become a dark purple shape outlined with an exquisite clearness, eaves and ridges and chimneys and creasings and window-frames. Four windows shone a fading orange and two of them suddenly blinked and vanished.

Would anyone look out of a window there and see him?

It did not matter. He would go on down towards the stream. This friendly mist would hide him.

It was wonderful to be in this white mist and yet not in it. It was always a little way from him. And nevertheless it wetted him. How crisp the frosted ground was, but if one kicked through the surface, it was soft.

Overhead the blueness increased and there was now a rippled patch of pink cloud.

He went deeper and deeper into the soft mist. Presently he was walking on long wet shrivelled grass. When he turned presently to look back at the asylum it had altogether disappeared.

_What was that?_ Was it something talking or was it the beating heart of some busy elfin machine? Listen! Peer! Think!

It was the stream.

Now everything was plain and easy.

He walked beside the stream. Near at hand trees became visible, attendant trees with mist about their waists, white-clad sentinel trees. The dry grass was ranker here. And what was this, like a denser lower mist within the mist? This was the wall. Beyond that wall, almost within shouting distance now, the friends and believers would be waiting. How discreet they were! Not a murmur, not a footfall.

For a long time Sargon stood motionless beside the culvert beneath the wall. At last he roused himself and by a great effort and with the help of the ivy he scrambled to the top of the wall.

No one waited. Some dim four-footed thing bolted from the frost-bitten weeds below, and then there was silence. There was no sign of watchers nor helpers.

No matter. If it was God’s will they would come.

He sat very still. He did not feel deserted nor alone. He was not in the least dismayed. He felt that the Power who had called him into being was all about him.

Slowly, steadily the light grew brighter. A little cloud like a floating feather caught fire very suddenly and then another. A great beam of light, like the beam of a searchlight, only very much broader, appeared slanting to the north. Then above a whaleback of distant downland came a knife-edge of dazzling light, an effulgence, like a curved knife, like a cap, like a dome, a quivering blazing fire-birth. And then torn clear of the hill and round and red the November sun had risen.

§ 5

It was full daylight and the mist had dissolved away. The roofs of the asylum buildings were now visible over the crest, divested of all magic, bleak and commonplace. From some point in that direction a dog was barking.

It was strange that there should be no one here. That young man whose name he had never known, had made it very plain that there were friends in waiting here. Perhaps they had gone away and would come back presently.

Still it did not matter now very much. At any rate he had seen a sunrise of almost incredible beauty. How good a thing the sun was! The thing of all visible things that was most like God.

Perhaps there were no helpers here at all. Perhaps he had misunderstood. He was stupid he knew. He misunderstood more and more. Perhaps presently keepers would come in search of him and take him back to the asylum. It might be so that things were decreed. He would not let it distress him. Life was full of trials and disappointments. He was feeling now very cold throughout his substance and tired so that all his energy was gone. With a start he became aware that there was a man standing up the slope that overlooked the asylum grounds. He felt a thrill of renewed vitality. This man was standing quite still looking down at the asylum. It might be one of the staff looking for him. Or one of the promised helpers. One of the promised helpers?

Sargon was not so calm and apathetic as he had supposed. He was atremble from head to foot. He was not shivering with cold but trembling with excitement. He felt he must end this doubt one way or the other. Could he catch this man’s eye? He waved a hand. Then he drew a dirty little pocket-handkerchief from his dressing-gown pocket and began to wave it. Now! Now it seemed the man was looking straight down at Sargon.

He was moving towards Sargon slowly, as if incredulous. Then he was signalling and running.

Sargon sat quite still. He knew all along they would come for him.

It was Bobby, close at hand now and crying out, “Sargon! It is you! Sargon!” Sargon did not wait for him. He turned about and scrambled and dropped off the wall. They clasped hands. “You have come to fetch me?”

“I was in despair. I didn’t dream you understood me. I’m all amazed.... Let me think; what are we to do? This is splendid. My motor bicycle is in the inn. Nuisance that. Yes, come along. I must hide you somewhere and fetch it. Then we will get away. I didn’t think you’d have no clothes. Clothes? Won’t show much. Cold? May be cold. I’ll get a rug. There’s a rug in the side-car.”

He led the way back up the slope, glancing ever and again at the asylum fields. Sargon trotted beside him, calmly confident in God and Bobby, with the limitless docility of one who trusts his servant.

§ 6

Bobby’s mind was fresh and bright that morning. He had wandered out to the asylum simply because he could lie in bed in a fever of regrets no longer. His extreme luck in encountering Sargon had restored all his confidence in himself and in the propitiousness of things. He made his plans quickly and with decision. It would be impossible to take Sargon back to the inn and give him coffee. So soon as he was missed they would surely go to the village. And every one would note this queer little figure with its dressing-gown and slippers and scarred ankles. He must get the little man into hiding somewhere close at hand. In that small beech-wood just over the next crest. (Pity he was so scantily clad!) Then the motor bicycle must be fetched as quickly as possible.

Sargon was absolutely trustful and obedient. “It is cold I know,” said Bobby, “but unavoidable. I wish there were not so many wet dead leaves.”

“Only be quick and fetch help,” said Sargon.

“Don’t stir from here,” said Bobby.

It was not the most perfect hiding-place in the world, a ditch, a clump of holly on the edge of a bare beech-wood, but it was all that downland was likely to provide. “So long,” said Bobby and set off at a smart trot for the inn and the motor bicycle. He arrived flushed, dishevelled, and out of breath and found the inn suspicious and reluctant when he announced that he wanted his bill instantly, refused any breakfast but a cup of tea and a chunk of bread and butter, and set about packing his little roll. There seemed endless things to do, taking an interminable time. To cap a score of irritating delays the inn was short of change and had to send out to the village shop. Billy’s motor bicycle, always a temperamental creature, gave great trouble with its kick starter. And meanwhile Sargon was shivering amidst the mud and dead leaves under the dripping trees or worse, being recaptured and led back into captivity.

It was nearly eight before Bobby came back along the cart-track into sight of the little beech-wood, and his heart jumped when he saw two heavy-looking men advancing towards him. He knew them for asylum men at once; they had the unmistakable flavour of subaltern authority that distinguishes prison warders, ex-policemen, time-keepers, and the keepers of the insane. As he throbbed near them they came into the middle of the road and made signs for him to stop. “Hell!” said Bobby, and pulled up.

They came alongside and without evident hostility.

“Excuse me, sir,” said one--and Bobby felt better.

“That large place you see there, sir, is Cummerdown Asylum. Perhaps you know it, sir?”

“No. _Which_ is the asylum? All of it?” Bobby felt he was being really clever and his spirits rose.

“Yesir.”

“Damn great place!” said Bobby.

“We’ve got one of our inmates astray this morning. Harmless little man, he is, and we ventured to stop you and ask you if you’ve seen him.”

Bobby had an inspiration. “I believe I have. Was he in a sort of brown robe and slippers with nothing on his head?”

“That’s ’im, sir. Where did you see him?”

Bobby turned round and pointed in the direction from which he had come. “He was making off along the edge of a field,” he said. “I saw him not--oh, not five minutes ago. Mile, or a bit more, away from here. Running he was. Along a hedge to the right--left I mean--near a chestnut plantation.”

“That’s ’im all right, Jim. _Where_ did you say, sir?”

Bobby’s brilliance increased. “If one of you will sit behind me and the other get into this contraption--bit of a load, but we can manage it--I’ll run you back to the very place. Right away.” And without more ado he set about turning round. “That’s a real help, sir,” said Jim. “Don’t mention it,” said Bobby.

Bobby was now at the top of his form. He loaded them in with helpful words--even the smaller of the two was a tight fit for the side-car and the other sat like a sack on the luggage carrier--he took them back a mile and a half until he found the suitable hedge by the chestnut tree. He unloaded them carefully, received their hearty but hasty thanks with a generous gesture and sent them off at a smart trot across the fields. “He can’t have a mile’s start,” he said. “And he wasn’t going particularly fast. Sort of limping.”

“That’s ’im,” said Jim.

Bobby kissed his hand to their retreating backs. “That’s _you_,” said Bobby. “God help you both and cleanse your hearts. And now for Sargon.”

He buzzed back to the place where he had left Sargon, turned his machine round again and then looked towards the corner of the wood by the holly clump where the little man ought to have been waiting. But there was no sign of a peeping head. “Queer!” said Bobby, and ran up to the place where he had left Sargon crouching in the ditch. Not a sign was there of him. Bobby looked about him, baffled and frightened. After all, after everything, could things go wrong now?

“Sargon,” he called, and then louder, “Sargon!”

Not a sound, not a rustle came in reply.

“He’s hidden! Can he have crawled away and fainted? Exhausted perhaps!”

Fear touched Bobby with a chilly finger. Had he mistaken the place perhaps? Had Sargon strayed away in spite of his promise, or crept back numbed and wretched to the warmth and shelter of the asylum? Bobby followed the ditch down to the corner of the wood, and beyond the corner in the ditch to the right he suddenly beheld a little old woman, a little old woman sitting bunched in a heap on a litter of dry straw and fast asleep. She was wearing a battered black straw hat adorned with a broken black feather, a small black jacket bodice; a sack was drawn over her feet and a second sack thrown shawlwise over her shoulders. She was so crumpled up her face was hidden, all except one bright red ear, and behind her on the bank lay two large stakes tied in the form of a cross. To Bobby she was the most astonishing of apparitions. It was disconcerting enough to discover Sargon gone. It was still more amazing to find him so oddly replaced.

Bobby stood hesitating for the better part of a minute. Should he wake the old thing up and ask her about Sargon, or should he steal away? Nothing, he decided, would be lost by asking.

He went close up to her and coughed. “Excuse me, Madam,” he said.

The sleeper did not awake.

Bobby rustled among the leaves, coughed louder, and asked to be excused again. The sleeper muttered a choking snore, woke with a start, looked up, and revealed the face of Sargon. He stared at Bobby without recognition for a moment and then gave way to an enormous yawn. While he yawned, his blue eyes gathered intelligence and understanding. “I was so cold,” he said. “I took these things from the scarecrow. And the straw was nice and dry to sit on. Shall we put it all back?”

“Oh, glorious idea!” cried Bobby, with all his spirits restored. “It makes an honest woman of you. Can you walk in that sack? No, we haven’t time to put it back. Shake it down off your legs and bring it with you. The side-car isn’t two hundred yards away. You’ll be able to put it on again then. This is magnificent! This is wonderful! Certainly we won’t put it back. Off we’ll go, and when we’ve a good ten miles between us and the asylum we’ll stop and get some hot coffee and something to eat.”

“Hot coffee!” said Sargon, brightening visibly. “And bacon and eggs?”

“Hot coffee and bacon and eggs,” said Bobby.

“The coffee there is--_beastly_,” said Sargon.

Bobby helped Sargon into the side-car and raised the hood over him, erected the wind-screen, and so packed him away. He became a quite passable aunt, dimly seen. And in another minute Bobby had kicked the engine into an impatient fuss and was in the saddle.

He felt himself now the cleverest fellow that ever stole a lunatic. Not that it wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to get a lunatic away. If you knew how.... They quivered and jolted along the little minor road and so on to the smooth main highway to Ashford and Folkestone. The accelerator was urged to do its best. “Good-bye, Cummerdown,” sang Bobby. “Cummerdown Hill, good-bye!”

The little old motor bike was going beautifully.

§ 7

They got their breakfast at an inn near a Post Office a mile or so beyond Offham. Bobby left Sargon dozing in the side-car and went to send a telegram to Dymchurch announcing his coming. There was some delay in the Post Office, as the post-mistress had mislaid her spectacles. Bobby returned to find the breakfast nearly ready and to assist Sargon out of his sack and into the little room of the inn. The landlord was a short, stout man, with a grave observant face. He watched this emergence of Sargon and his progress to a chair behind the little white tablecloth, with silent wonder. Then for a time he hid. Then he came back into the little room where the table was set. For some moments he stood regarding Sargon. “Umph!” he said at last and turned about and went slowly into his kitchen where some sort of wife seemed to be cooking things. “’E’s a rummun”; Bobby heard him remark, and so was prepared for discussion.